The present invention relates to a system for electrically connecting cabin equipment of an aircraft to a control system and to at least one electrical power supply source of the aircraft.
The cabin of an aircraft is equipped with various cabin equipment comprising one or more electrical service elements. Such cabin equipment includes, for example, the panels surrounding the aircraft access doors, the toilets, the kitchen or kitchens (also called galleys), the baggage lockers, the signs, etc. This cabin equipment is in the form of modules that are installed in the cabin and which are electrically connected to the various control systems of the aircraft by means of suitable cables in order, on the one hand, to receive control signals from the control systems or to transmit such signals to the systems and, on the other hand, to be supplied with power by the aircraft's power supply sources.
In the present description, the term “control” relates to both an operation of monitoring a particular process as well as an operation of controlling such a process.
For example, in FIG. 1, two pieces of cabin equipment 10 and 11 forming a kitchen (galley), one piece of cabin equipment 12 composed of a panel surrounding an aircraft access door and one piece of cabin equipment 13 forming toilets are shown. Each piece of cabin equipment 10, 11, 12, 13 is connected, on the one hand, to an electrical power supply line 20 for supplying electrical power thereto, this electrical power supply line 20 being connected to one or more centralized power supply sources 30 and, on the other hand, to a decoding/encoding unit 40, 41, 421, 422, 43 in order to receive therefrom or transmit thereto control data from various control units 50, e.g., for detecting whether the or each service element of the cabin equipment in question is functioning correctly, for illuminating an emergency light, for lighting the cabin equipment in question, for transmitting audio messages, for transmitting alerts, for detecting smoke or for measuring the temperature, etc. To do this, each piece of service equipment 10, 11, 12, 13 is equipped with a connector 60, 61, 621, 622, 63, referred to in the rest of the description as an “equipment connector,” and connectors 70, 71, 721, 722, 73, referred to in the rest of the description as “host connectors,” are mounted on the wall 100 of the cabin. Lastly, suitable cables 80 are connected by their ends to the equipment connectors 60 and to the host connectors 70, respectively.
As may be seen in FIG. 1, the wall 100 delimits two areas: one, the aircraft side and the other, the equipment side.
In FIG. 2, an exemplary connection system according to the prior art is shown. On the cabin side, it comprises a piece of cabin equipment 200 that comprises, by way of example, the following electrical service elements: an emergency light 210, a toilet occupancy light 220, a handset for transmitting audio messages 230, a surveillance camera 240 and a remote control 250. These various service elements are connected to one or more equipment connectors 60.
It also comprises, on the aircraft side, a decoding/encoding unit 310, an electrical power supply source 320, an emergency power supply source 330 and a control unit 340 for controlling service units for passengers (videos, video games, etc.) (not shown). These various elements are connected to one or more host connectors 70.
The connectors 60, 70 allow the cabin equipment 200 and, more particularly, the remote control 250, to be connected to the control unit 340, the surveillance camera 240 to be connected to the decoding/encoding unit 310, the handset 230 to be connected to the electrical power supply source 320 and to the decoding/encoding unit 310, the toilet occupancy light 200 to be connected to the decoding/encoding unit 310 and the emergency light 210 to be connected to the emergency power supply source 330. The number of wires allowing a piece of cabin equipment 200 to be connected to the aircraft may be relatively high, e.g., of the order of 100.
Each host connector 70 placed on the walls 100 of the cabin is specific to the cabin equipment connected thereto. Moreover, the one or more connection cables used are also specific, as it is these that ensure the transfer of data to the control system 50.
Consequently, the layout of an aircraft must be considered from the moment of its conception to the extent that at the moment of its outfitting, the position of each piece of cabin equipment in the cabin must be known in relation to the one or more host connectors specific to this piece of cabin equipment. Thus, this outfitting must be conclusively fixed and any change requires a new layout to be studied. This is all the more the case if the cables are distributed along different routes in order to satisfy electromagnetic interference, safety and radius of curvature constraints. Lastly, this set of constraints complicates and slows the production and installation of the equipment.